and yet the only EV without any subsidy…
Apart from cycle to work schemes
Last time I checked, log burners didn’t sit in lines outside schools puffing away nor did they cause congestion, traffic collisions, road wear etc.
No, but they do pump out a lot of carcinogenic PM10s which those school children will breath in - unless bath schools have their own air supply....
I do wonder, though, whether the money poured into these schemes would be better used subsidising electric bikes (cargo or otherwise) – currently the most sustainable form of EV transport, and yet the only EV without any subsidy…
In principle I can understand the rationale but you’ve also got to make getting in the car less attractive. Most people discount the sunk costs of car ownership entirely (as they already have it..) so just saying “look over here, you can use a slightly cheaper ebike” isn’t going to persuade them to get out of their nice warm car with heated seats and Apple CarPlay.
However I still feel the implementation is terrible. It should be seamless as possible – ie tag based, perhaps (like toll roads in europe) for regular users, or tied to license plates.
This.
Needs central government to coordinate and implement this, but they're running scared and want local politicians to take all the flak, even though they know measures are needed and are pushing local government to put them in place.
The signs say "pay online". The ones in Manchester are the same.
What if you're not online?
What Kelvin said - the other issue from the little I know of these zones is they often have different rules. There seems to be no way other than on line to pay which is a bit odd tho cars are exempt
Agreed, no need to throw out the baby with the bath water just because there’s another pollution source we also need to look at.
I commute by bike in Bristol, I’m genuinely worried that the air quality is poor enough that it’s considered detrimental to my health. Looking forward to the CAZ coming in.
How are you lefties dealing with this one? Towns tend to have the less well off who cannot afford a new car. Alright some can't afford a car at all but they are not involved in this discussion. Surely this is yet another way of having a go at the poor?
Oo er . Clash here . Eco warriors having to worry about their own polictics.
It must be a right sod if you live there and aren't well enough off to buy a new car/van.
Errmmm - urban poor are the least likely group to own a car. Urban poor are the most likely to have issues with the poor air quality. this is a pro urban poor policy
The richest groups show as not owning cars in the stats - because they lease them or own thru companies
This low emission zone excludes cars anyway. Cars are not due to pay the fees
With the Bradford CAZ residents can get an exemption for their non-compliant van, no cars are chargeable. Don't know if this is how the other schemes operate.
Low income communities are more likely to live in heavily polluted areas and as such are more likely to get respiritory disease from low air quality
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61816057
Don't you dare dress up your "need" to drive cars with concern for the lower income groups. its a complete nonsense. the folk who benefit most from these pollution control measures are the low income groups
Apart from cycle to work schemes
which are only available to salaried workers, which often have stringent cost limitations (less than electric bikes tend to cost) and some which have restrictions on your ability to purchase electrically assisted bikes.
ergo, cycle to work schemes are a red herring in the debate over subsidised EVs.
This low emission zone excludes cars anyway. Cars are not due to pay the fees
Bristol includes private cars (Euro 4 petrol or worse, Euro 6 diesel)
There's plenty of not too well off sole traders with non compliant vans in Calderdale who were really going to struggle with the huge Manchester CAZ; I assume that would be the case for many bordering it.
Plus it will be huge if it ever goes ahead.
The signs in Bath are a bit varied in their visibility but on the whole they are good. The issue is the colour they chose, it doesn't stand out so is easily missed if you're not aware of what they look like. The thing about Bath though is that it's a horrible place to drive around with it's jumbled street layout, narrow streets and hills. I hate driving round it and will avoid getting anywhere near the centre if I can help it!
My main issue is that it focusses the extra cost on those least able to afford it – those who cannot afford a newer vehicle, and those who need to work in the centre of town at less sociable hours, who may therefore not be able, or feel comfortable, using public transport (I’m sure many on here would sneer at those situations, cos we’re mostly middle aged, wealthy, blokes).
Driving round Bath and Bristol every working day it amazes me just how many really old cars, and a lot of diesels, there are in daily use. There's going to be a lot of people priced off the roads there when the Bristol one goes live.
Seems like a council money maker…
Which anyone who uses council services, which is everyone in one way or another, should applaud!
There’s plenty of not too well off sole traders with non compliant vans in Calderdale who were really going to struggle with the huge Manchester CAZ; I assume that would be the case for many bordering it.
So they will no longer be able to undercut the sole traders who are environmentally conscious and don't pollutte as much?
this is a microcosm of the bigger climate change debate. Clean air requires lifestyle change.
Just been googling this as going this weekend but no map layers! Rediculous. A few screen grabs but no simple map layers that I could find.
Bristol includes private cars (Euro 4 petrol or worse, Euro 6 diesel)
You've got the cut-off in the wrong direction. It doesn't apply to those classes or better.
There's also a ton of exemptions for things like residence and those on low income, so Matt's attempt at right-wing politicising is bollocks that could be fact-checked in about 15 seconds. I know, I was shocked too.
There’s plenty of not too well off sole traders with non compliant vans in Calderdale who were really going to struggle with the huge Manchester CAZ; I assume that would be the case for many bordering it.
Plus it will be huge if it ever goes ahead.
This is one reason these schemes bother me. I mean I support the idea in principle, we all want clean air, well they should repeal the smoking ban but that's a different conversation. Exemptions should be made for tradesmen for example. I suppose they can always pass on the cost to the customer like parking tickets. But then what's to stop every commuting office drone and boy-racer just saying "yeah I'm a plumber innit"
So they will no longer be able to undercut the sole traders who are environmentally conscious and don’t pollutte as much?
Possibly. Or, more likely, costs will be passed on if the trader thinks it's worth dumping their van and spending the £40k plus on another one.
Those who don't want to make such a massive investment will need to fold up and go find something else to do; post Brexit there's loads of minimum wage jobs going.
I wasn't arguing though, just commenting on stuff I'd heard said locally.
I don't really care if all the local one man bands go bust, it's no skin off my nose, there's always going to be someone to do the jobs that need doing.
Or, more likely, costs will be passed on if the trader thinks it’s worth dumping their van and spending the £40k plus on another one.
Thats what I meant.
There’s also a ton of exemptions for things like residence and those on low income, so Matt’s attempt at right-wing politicising is bollocks that could be fact-checked in about 15 seconds. I know, I was shocked too.
Most of which expire on the 31st March 2023
Looking at national exemptions I notice 'historic vehicle'. I wonder why more people don't run old classics? No tax, no MOT, no CAZ charges... and you're driving around in something awesome rather than a van. I'm getting an XJS V12 tomorrow!
Most of which expire on the 31st March 2023
Oh yeah, they're listed as temporary exemptions buried in the T&Cs. Mia culpa.
I wonder what happens then, whether you can just renew or whether they just stop? It doesn't say as I can see.
I’m getting an XJS V12 tomorrow!
I can see a flaw in this approach to reliable transport.
All these folk bleating about it being an additional tax on the poor. The poor don't drive into the zone, parking costs are already prohibitive. More accurately it's a tax on the wealthy folk who live in the congestion zones, who need tradesmen for their extensions and repairs to victoian houses.
Where the Bristol one is strange is the truncation of the city - there's no easy way to skirt it to the west. What you'll get is a distinct market for trades, those in the north and south sticking to jobs that are free to reach, those in the zone paying more.
. More accurately it’s a tax on the wealthy folk who live in the congestion zones,
There's a serious issue with CAZ (which is only going to get worse) that the rich can relatively easily buy themselves a compliant car and just continue to drive around, no issues, no charges. It really does penalise those people in transport poverty who rely on a car, can't afford a newer model and aren't adequately served by public transport.
And then you end up with all the negative externalities of traffic (congestion, road deaths/injuries, noise pollution etc) and no/limited income from your CAZ because every vehicle within the zone is compliant.
The problem is that our dysfunctional Government has basically offloaded all this to councils who have all come up with their own, different, systems with varying requirements and it's a bit of a mess. It would have been better to do this nationally but that would require leadership from the top and...well Tories.
crazylegs
apart from the urban poor are the least likey group to have a car and the most likely group to suffer from poor air quality. its a bogus concern
I wouldn’t belittle the danger of air quality; far more likely to be killed by that than covid even if we hadn’t had lockdowns.
That said, whilst CAZ help with this, they are more a way for left wing councils to extract some cash from those too poor to afford new cars (and therefore probably too uncultured to vote labour) whilst their middle class voters get to enjoy less congested roads whilst feeling smug about their clean new cars and low CO2 (but air quality destroying) log burners.
CAZ has also been implemented in Newcastle recently.
I want to see how the council slowly strangles the City centre to make it into a ghost town.
And yep, councils are councils and will always profiteer.
Nope. They're not allowed to.
Compliant petrol vehicles were introduced in 2005, and diesel 2015/16 so the faux concern about people having to buy new vehicles is misplaced.
Who are these urban poor anyway? Haven't they all been shipped off to far-flung sink estates/Luton so that their homes can be cleared to make way for more coffee shops?
City centres should just be closed to ALL traffic. There is no other workable solution to truly rid them of the scourge.
If you have a reasonable reason to take a vehicle in there there should be a free permit scheme.
Allowing only people that have enough disposable income to relentlessly ruin towns should not be an option.
If the poor don't have cars and the affluent buy newer cars, who the **** is driving all these polluting cars around?
Compliant petrol vehicles were introduced in 2005, and diesel 2015/16 so the faux concern about people having to buy new vehicles is misplaced.
Yep. Never ever see 64/65 plate diesel cars and vans on the road nowadays.
City centres should just be closed to ALL traffic
...
Allowing only people that have enough disposable income to relentlessly ruin towns should not be an option.
Do you mean cities, or towns?
City centres, sure. With a decent public transport alterative (park & ride buses, trams etc) there's little reason you'd need to drive into a city centre unless you lived there. If I'm visiting Manchester it's as quick to drive to an outskirts P&R and get the Metro in as it is to drive and park in the city centre, and if I'm on my own it's cheaper.
Towns though, plenty are dying. Any barrier to driving / parking would be a hammer blow. Hyndburn BC implemented a short-lived (free) disc-based parking scheme a few years ago, trade in Accrington went through the floor.
There's no one size fits all answer unless you take the hit that some towns will just finally die. For Accy it might not be a bad thing, level the centre and turn it into a greenspace. Ironically that's exactly what it used to be.
City centres should just be closed to ALL traffic. There is no other workable solution to truly rid them of the scourge.
If you have a reasonable reason to take a vehicle in there there should be a free permit scheme.
You've really not thought that through have you?
Who will be paying to administer the scheme?
How much will it cost vs what's happening now?
I live in Bath and I've been caught out. Was in a rush and I think I just did the form wrong.
Bath council ban log burners? Yeah right.
Council caved on the original plan and allowed cars. Original plan included cars. Obviously it's only aatter.of time.
I agree with you TJ in terms of averages and likelihoods. However, not everyone is an average. If the council brought it in here with the original plan (with cars and no residential exemption and, most hitting, quite short lead time) then I know people who would have struggled, But they didn't so it's a moot point.
It would be interesting to see the impact on surrounding areas. There are now 2 routes north/South avoiding it. Both through residential areas. Seems to be way more traffic there but who knows. At the same time the busiest bridge in the Caz north/South was contraflow, and that obviously makes a difference.
I cant get over the fact that people are driving vans as day to day transport for leisure purposes as in this case, for a wedding in a city centre. Whilst people keeping thinking this is Ok we don't have much chance of reducing the toxic conditions in city centres. Why don't lifestyle van drivers get the same hate as SUV drivers (which in many cases are no less efficient or polluting than the cars they are based on). Vans are generally pretty unaerodynamic and have large engines as they are designed to carry loads not lots of people.
Cougar, cities promarily, but traffic bans in other areas where it is beneficial too, some tourist hotspots with issues for example, why not? 🙂
squirrelking
You’ve really not thought that through have you?
Who will be paying to administer the scheme?
How much will it cost vs what’s happening now?
what are you refering to? are you expecting a full proposal with a cost analysis? *shrug*
either way it would eventually produce the desired results and probably cost much less to run once people adjust their habits and public services and procedures are in place to minimise any issues, real improvements will never happen with CC ULEZ CAZ or any other schemes based on charges, there is historical evidence of this.
If the poor don’t have cars and the affluent buy newer cars, who the **** is driving all these polluting cars around?
There's a third segment which TJ conveniently ignores...
The really poor don't own cars.
The rich do (and they're generally newer vehicles compliant with the latest emissions regs so they don't pay ULEZ or CAZ Class D so they can continue to drive with no further charges).
In the middle is a group of "not rich but not destitute" people who are (generally) in lower paid jobs, they can get by but they're basically living month to month, paycheck to paycheck. They can't afford newer cars and as a result of their limited means they're often priced out of city centres, forced into living a long way from work and therefore forced into car ownership (due to limited/expensive public transport) which then takes up what little disposable income they have. These are the people driving the polluting cars, forced into paying another tax for doing so.
I cant get over the fact that people are driving vans as day to day transport for leisure purposes as in this case, for a wedding in a city centre. Whilst people keeping thinking this is Ok we don’t have much chance of reducing the toxic conditions in city centres. Why don’t lifestyle van drivers get the same hate as SUV drivers (which in many cases are no less efficient or polluting than the cars they are based on). Vans are generally pretty unaerodynamic and have large engines as they are designed to carry loads not lots of people.
Maybe they need a vehicle which can carry loads for the other five or six days of the week when they're working and can't justify (or afford) to buy, tax and insure a second vehicle on the off-chance that they might have a wedding to go to?